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From Atari Joyboard to Wii Fit: 25 years of "Exergaming"

gadgets.boingboing.net — After hugely successful launches in Japan and Europe, Nintendo's Wii Fit exercise game is coming to the United States May on 19th, where it is sure to find sales success. But Wii Fit is hardly the first example of an attempt to meld videogaming and exercise — it's not even the first fitness offering from Nintendo.

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  • domfosnz, on 05/16/2008, -2/+4That's a blast from the past. I never had a powerglove though.
    • mem2, on 05/16/2008, -1/+3Its so bad
    • TheUngod, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1Unless you mean the band. Powerglove rocks. but THE powerglove sucked balls.
  • spartan56fr, on 05/16/2008, -2/+4Wow! So I guess everything old is new in the video gaming industry as well. I really like the Wii though, it is so different compared to its competitors.
    • MWeather, on 05/16/2008, -1/+1Other than a pointing device and worse graphics, how is it different?
  • Omenofwar, on 05/16/2008, -10/+0Ok the wii sucks the only reason that it is selling any thing is because of either a) morons b) young kids that are ADHD c) both reasons shown above (sorry could not get creative and throw more stuff in) it also has the worst green house emission rating of the three major consoles. So kiddies if you want something to destroy the ozone go and get a wii.
    • STKD, on 05/16/2008, -0/+31) You just called over 20 million people morons.
      2) Might want to check on that emission rating again. The Wii has - by far and away - the LOWEST power use of any of the current gen consoles.
      • MWeather, on 05/16/2008, -0/+1There are well over 20 million morons in the world. There are at least 10 times as many as that in the US alone, probably more.
    • skywake, on 05/16/2008, -0/+2Its also worth considering that the hole in the ozone layer is the result of CFCs. A haloalkane that chewed away at the ozone layer and was banned in many nations by the 1980s. The hole in the Ozone layer has absolutely nothing to do with greenhouse gasses nor global warming.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbon#En ...

      I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that the Wii is environmentally unsound. Out of all the consoles this generation the Wii uses the least amount of power. Full load the Wii uses about 18W, the gamecube uses about 20W, the PS2 uses about 30W, the 360 uses about 160W.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii#Technical_specifi ...
      http://www.dxgaming.com/2006/06/17/game-console-en ...
    • Omenofwar, on 05/17/2008, -1/+0ok firstly to STKD
      There are morons in this world and sense there are WAY over that many people in the world i think that number fits pretty well. Also i never said it had the highest "power use" all I said was it has the worst green house gas emission rating of the three major consoles. The wii does has the lowest power usage but that is because it has the crap yest/ oldest hard ware.
      And to skywake
      Thanks for putting a Wiki site that is definitely going to convince me. Sorry I'm not home 24/7 to look up information to put onto my comments but what ever. I'm not as.... informed as you are in the ... green house gas hole in our atmosphere.... but I know that the wii is not causing a gaping hole up there I just know that it is contributing to the hole.

      Ok I got that stuff from a Game Informer magazine a few months ago but I cant find it to give you the issue number sorry I would if I could but I just moved so every thing is a mess. But I'm going to keep looking just so I can laugh in yals faces.
  • STKD, on 05/16/2008, -1/+4I have a Joyboard and 2600, for weeks before Wii Fit came out I was practicing slalom skiing on Mogul Maniac. People were puzzled by my ability to get so good at the slalom skiiing balance game so fast...
    The Joyboard works very differently though; it is balanced on one central base part (very hard to balance on with any amount of stability) and is very much the equivalent of standing atop a four-directional digital joystick and pushing a direction. The Wii Fit Balance Board uses analogue sensors at each corner and can measure with a fairly stunning degree of accuracy very minor fluctuations in movement. The technology definitely has far more potential given that it does a very good job of translating full body movements into the games.
  • whaler, on 05/16/2008, -0/+5They forgot Namco's Rapid River, the arcade game where you paddle the raft down some rapids. In order to do well at that game, you had to work up a sweat.
  • kravex, on 05/16/2008, -1/+3For the younger readers, yes, people really did dress like that.
  • danjal, on 05/16/2008, -1/+1People may laugh and scoft at this, but I ask you. If you can not get the kids off the computer games, is not at least the lesser of two evils to at least get them into shape for when they finaly do venture outside?
    • MWeather, on 05/16/2008, -0/+1When kids are outside, they're just playing their DS.
  • caintrain, on 05/16/2008, -0/+2The Nintendo power pad officially made me run like an r-tard for the rest of my life
  • kevro, on 05/16/2008, -0/+1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvsT7ZI4ikU&eurl=ht ...

    Fitness program for the intellivision ece. Starts at 4:29 min in.
  • jgunn72, on 05/16/2008, -1/+0From TFA: "all but guarantees that Wii Fit will be soon be under millions of American couches, forgotten.". I know previous attempts at exergames failed miserably, but I do not think it is guaranteed that the wii board will. A lot of the previous games failed because after you played the game it came with, that was it. At that point, yes the device would go under the sofa. Also the sales of the previous exergame devices were dismal. The wii board will sell like hotcakes. The wii board already has another game with great reviews "We Ski" already out pre US wii fit launch. Another Skateboarding game is on the way which has gotten great reviews for use of the board as well. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the wii board. It's all about future software support and with the wii board sold out in the US online already, I bet there will not be a lack of new titles.
  • Lynxpro, on 05/16/2008, -0/+5
    This is a so-so write-up.

    The article lists the Joyboard as an Atari product even though it was an Amiga product for the Atari 2600. Of course, conspiracists might consider Amiga at that time to be a secret Atari spin-off to develop tech away from Atari so its competitors could not discover what they were up to [just as "Cyan Engineering" had developed the 2600]. Amiga was after all Jay Miner's baby, and Jay Miner had developed the custom chips for the 2600 and the 400/800 computer line before he left.

    Amiga received its financing from Atari to develop the custom chips that ultimately landed in the (Commodore) Amiga computer line, although they were intended to be used in a next-gen Atari game console and later serve as the basis for the 1800XL computer. Atari itself had competing next-gen computer projects such as Project Sierra and Project Gaza (a dual Motorola 68000 powered parallel processing system developed in 1983) under secret development which never came to market.

    Of course, the video game crash combined with Jack Tramiel's computer price war ruined Atari's finances and caused its parent company Warner Communications to shop Atari around to prevent itself from being taken over by Rupert Murdoch. They then sold Atari to Tramiel - after he had left Commodore - which then screwed up the entire Amiga deal since Tramiel had mentioned to that company before that he was interested in their tech but not their staff. They sold out to Commodore and thus began the 16-bit computer war between the now Commodore Amiga and the Atari ST - neither of which were as powerful as the Gaza - which caused both companies to lose the overall industry as IBM PC clones got cheaper by 1990.
  • Bombfrog, on 05/16/2008, -0/+1Wow, I need one of those for my retro collection.

    Wii Fit has been available in the UK for a while and I'm quite enjoying it, especially the skiing.
  • methos75, on 05/16/2008, -3/+0I still do not understand the whole concept of Wiifit, or how it can improve ones health. Does it shock you when ever you try to Hamfist a Value Meal and a bucket size drink into your gullet? Does it change the Wii into a few 45 pound plates and a Bench set? Does it open up a rift in Tine, allowing a Dragon to pop out and chase your ass around for 45 Minutes? Because if not, its pretty useless. If waving a white stick around was healthy for you, I be a fitness model right now, because god knows I do a lot of it at Night.
  • BitKid, on 05/16/2008, -0/+1My friend's dad designed a device called the FP Gamerunner which allowed you to control FPS games by walking on a treadmill. The thing never really made it to the mainstream though, but I can say personally it was pretty effective at controlling games like Quake. The speed you ran on the treadmill controlled the walk speed in the game, and the movements on the motorcycle handlebar thing did the looking left and right and up and down. Controls on the handlebars were used for attacking and jumping.
    http://www.fpgamerunner.com/
  • lulzmaster, on 05/16/2008, -0/+1I tried to do the aerobics with the powerpad. it's incredibly hard.
  • TheBlackLotus, on 05/16/2008, -1/+0They Forgot MOCAP Boxing, in the arcade.. Sure all it was, was throwing punches and watching ur calories burn on screen, but still.
  • acetone42, on 05/16/2008, -1/+0I wanted a power glove SO BAD when I was a kid! I thought I would look so bad-ass with that thing on my arm. I'm glad my tastes have matured a little bit since then ;)
  • Doomsan, on 05/17/2008, -0/+1I love the power glove...is so bad.
  • zaphod49015, on 05/17/2008, -0/+0No Eyetoy? Some of those games were tiring... Try playing Groove with hand weights.
  • windrabbit1, on 05/18/2008, -1/+0We provide you 20% discount for all World of War craft power leveling packages and gold on our website gmlvl.com these days, and will provide more promotion. Besides, have you imagined that there is power leveling for free before? Now it happens on gmlvl.com 12 hours Free!!! Hurry up!
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